School Transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education and Skills.
The purpose of my Department's School Transport Scheme is, having regard to available resources, to support the transport to and from school of children who reside remote from their nearest school.
In the 2019/20 school year over 120,000 children, including over 14,200 children with special educational needs, were transported in over 5,000 vehicles on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country covering over 100 million kilometres at a cost of over €219m in 2019.
With regard to transport arrangements for the Summer Programme, my Department committed to providing grant funding to support families with the cost of transport arrangements for those children who were eligible for school transport and who were approved to participate in the school based Summer Programme.
Schools were required to identify children who availed of a School Trnsport service or who were in receipt of a grant. School Transport Section issued correspondance to schools outlining what was required in order to process such payments.
School Transport Section has commenced processing payment of these grants and it is envisaged that payments will continue to be processed in the coming weeks. The information requested by the Deputy is not readily available at this time and will be provided directly to the Deputy when it is available.
